Research

I use ethnography and other methods to study how open-ended structures and processes allow individuals, groups, organisations, and communities to effectively monitor the environment as it changes and adapt in response. Such adaptability is especially important and difficult when the external environment is uncertain. This research offers specific strategic and tactical recommendations about open-ended organization for practitioners designing and managing innovative and adaptable groups and communities.

My current work focuses on adaptability and innovation in nine internationally renowned culinary R&D teams. A recent paper in Administrative Science Quarterly based on this research (titled “Using negotiated joining to construct and fill open-ended roles in elite culinary teams”) analyses interview and ethnographic data from these groups to show how—contrary to previous research—ambiguous group goals and member roles enhance a group’s adaptability and ability to innovate.

Other work now in progress includes field experiments in the transmission of non-explicatable knowledge and formal modelling of agent decisions under conditions of external uncertainty.